Issued  May  5.  1915 


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The  Federation  has  produced  a church  a 
year,  average,  with  properties  aggregating 
over  ^1,000,000;  assisted  at  least  100  others 
with  advice  on  special  enquiries  submitted 
to  it,  or  with  special  visitors;  and  placed 
suggestions  for  neighborhood  survey  and 
service  in  the  hands  of  over  1,000  churches. 

Expenditures  of  the  city,  aggregating  over 
$20,000,000,  have  been  influenced  by  the 
Federation. 

The  population  surveys  published  comprise 
over  2500  pages,  and  the  answering  of  en- 
quiries concerning  religious,  racial  and  social 
conditions  are  a constant  feature  and  duty 
of  its  office. 


mf  orkSTf  Jif  raltnttof  (EtfwrrljPB 

Organized  May  13,  1895 
Incorporated  September  11,  1901 
Endowed  ? 


The  good  the  churches  do  now, 
plus  the  added  good  complete  co- 
operation would  accomplish,  is  the 
good  they  ought  to  be  doing. 


SOME  ACHIEVEMENTS. 


Pioneering  for  Other  Cities. 

This  Federation  started  the  present 
strong  swing  of  American  cities  toward  a 
cooperative  Protestantism.  It  was  the  earli- 
est city  federation  in  the  nation.  Over  100 
have  since  been  formed.  At  Atlantic  City, 
in  June,  these  organizations  will  hold  an 
extension  and  efficiency  conference.  Twen- 
ty years  hence  every  American  city  will 
have  its  federation. 

Producing  a National  Movement: 

The  National  Federation  of  Churches, 
formed  in  1901,  used  the  success  of  the 
New  York  work,  then  six  years  old,  as 
an  argument  for  a national  organization. 
From  the  National  Federation,  the  Federal 
Council  of  Churches  of  Christ  in  America, 
representing  17,000,000  communicants,  was 
developed  in  1908. 

Helping  the  Census  of  the  World’s 
Largest  City:  New  York  passed  London 
July  4,  1908.  In  1910  the  Federal  Census 
Bureau  used  the  Federation’s  nationality 
count  of  Manhattan-Bronx,  by  blocks^  to 
assign  enumerators. 

In  return  it  agreed  to  tabulate  New 
York’s  population  in  terms  of  707  tracts 
instead  of  77  districts.  The  Federation,  in 
turn,  agreed  to  map  and  measure  the  tracts, 
and,  with  the  cooperation  of  the  borough 
topographical  bureaux,  did  so.  The  official 
maps  of  the  city’s  tracts,  the  basis  of  its 
census  reporting  throughout  this  century, 
are  the  Federation’s  work. 

Freeing  the  State  from  a Ganrbling 
Trust:  The  Committee  formed  to  cooperate 
with  Governor  Hughes,  in  1908,  to  repeal  the 
Percj'-Gray  racing  laws,  was  organized  in 
the  Federation’s  office.  Its  Chairman  was 
the  Federation’s  Executive  Secretary.  364 
churches  in  the  city  and  over  1,000  in  the 
State  at  large  combined  in  this  campaign. 
Its  mottoes  were:  “The  Constitutional 
Amendment  of  1894,  commanding  the 
Legislature  to  pass  laws  adapted  to  pro- 
hibit pool-selling,  book-making  and  every 
kind  of  gambling  business,  must  be  taken  at 
face  value;”  and  “The  State  can  get  along 
with  slow  horses  better  than  with  fast  men.” 

The  Agnew-Hart  bills  of  1908-1910, 
affirmative  legislation,  and  the  defeat  of  all 
2 


Ci)e  gorfe  Jfelieratton  of  0I!)urct)es 

March  22-27,  1915. 

A WEEK^S  WORK 

For  Individuals;  Churches;  Institutions;  Local  Charities;  the  City; 
Evangelistic  and  Interdenominational  Agencies;  and  State  and  National 
Organizations. 

FOR  INDIVIDUALS. 

High-class  professional  man  assisted  with  loan  fund. 

Author  of  play  dealing  with  drug  habit  requests  reading  of  MS.,  and 
advice  on  its  uses  for  social  service. 

Physician  returning  from  War  Zone  requests  advice  on  entering 
social  work  as  life  profession. 

FOR  CHURCHES. 

Washington  Heights  M.E.  worker  asks  distribution,  membership, 
seating  capacity,  character  of  population,  etc.,  of  neighborhood  churches. 

A Fifth  Avenue  church  worker  asks  for  church  distribution  and  char- 
acter of  population  on  upper  East  Side  and  upper  West  Side  of  Man- 
hattan. 

Woodhaven  Congregational  requests  Secretary’s  lecture  on  “Four 
Days  in  a German  Military  Prison  and  Their  Lessons.” 

Bethany  Congregational  receives  second  $200  from  Federation’s 
$15,000  Unemployment-Relief  Fund,  for  work-room  for  women. 

Labor  Temple  receives  $150  for  work-room  for  women. 

Clinton  Ave.  Congregational  and  associated  churches  receive  $100  for 
unemployment-relief  work  of  Prospect  Hill  Clergy  and  Laity  League. 

Bohemian  Presbyterian  Church  receives  $100  for  unemployment- 
relief  among  Bohemians. 

Union  Settlement-American  Parish  receives  $75  grant  for  work-room 
among  Italian  population. 

Over  one  hundred  churches  similarly  assisted,  irrespective  of  creed, 
to  help  the  unemployed  since  February  first. 


FOR  INSTITUTIONS. 

Columbia  University  Belgian  and  Serbian  Relief  Committee  asks 
help  in  advertising  relief  entertainment. 

New  York  University  asks  advice  and  map  concerning  political 
units,  and  their  racial  characteristics,  in  New  York  City. 


THE  WEEK,  March  22-27,  1915 

Curtis  High  School  requests  information  concerning  churches  of 
different  communions  in  New  York. 

FOR  LOCAL  CHARITIES. 

Charity  Organization  Society  asks  help  in  defeating  vicious  changes 
in  tenement-house  law,  and  assistance  in  enacting  better  criminal  courts 
legislation. 

Association  for  Improving  Condition  of  the  Poor  asks  $1,000  from 
Federation’s  Unemployment-Relief  Fund. 

Newsboys’  Club  Committee  asks  co-operation  in  ten-day  campaign. 

FOR  THE  CITY. 

Board  of  Health  requests  acreage  figures  of  census  tracts  for  guid- 
ance in  extending  40-acre  unit  for  population  tabulations  over  whole  area 
of  New  York,  and  arranges  co-operation  with  the  Federation  in  meas- 
uring and  certifying  these  areas  for  Federal  Census  Bureau. 

Charities  Department  receives  set  of  Federation’s  population  maps 
for  sub-division  of  the  city  into  charity  areas  for  records  and  reports. 

Department  of  Records,  Board  of  Health,  receives  loan  of  Federa- 
tion’s tract  population  publication  for  scientific  determination  of  mor- 
bidity and  mortality  rates. 

FOR  EVANGELISTIC  AND  INTERDENOMINATIONAL 
AGENCIES. 

New  York  Evangelistic  Committee  asks  assistance  in  scientifically 
determining  communicants  of  religious  bodies  in  New  York  City. 

Prospect  West  Interchurch  League  requests  assistance  in  securing 
municipal  study  of  economic  effect  of  the  saloon  in  the  life  of  New  York. 

Church  Extension  Committee  receives  assurance  of  Federation’s  im- 
mediate preparation  of  official  church  distribution  maps  of  New  York. 

FOR  STATE  AND  NATIONAL  ORGANIZATIONS. 

New  York  Child  Labor  Committee  asks  co-operation  in  defeating 
legislation  impairing  value  of  laws  affecting  economic  conditions,  whose 
passage  in  1913  and  1914  was  helped  by  Federation’s  Law  Enactment 
Department. 

National  Reform  Bureau  requests  Federation’s  assistance  in  con- 
duct of  its  campaign  against  the  “Mormon  Kingdom.” 

“Flying  Squadron”  requests  assistance  in  arranging  meetings  in 
month  of  May. 

National  Abstainers*  Union  requests  assistance  in  arranging  public 
meeting  in  April. 


emasculating  amendments,  1911-1913,  re- 
sulted. The  Anti  - Racetrack  - Gambling 
Committee  has  never  dissolved,  and  is  ready 
to  defend  the  continuance  of  the  mandatory 
anti-gambling  provisions  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. 

Providing  New  York  City  with 
Knowledge  of  Itself:  From  1895  to 
1907  the  Federation  made  house-to-house 
canvasses  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  fam- 
ilies in  four  of  the  five  boroughs. 

The  discovery  of  the  city’s  most  populous 
block,  north  of  59th  Street,  was  among  the 
most  potent  arguments  for  the  need  of  the 
Tenement  House  Department,  which  was 
created  six  years  after  the  churches  had 
classed  the  housing  question  as  essentially 
religious,  by  including  light,  air,  water- 
supply,  bath  and  toilet  facilities,  rentals, 
room-crowding  and  acreage  density  in  its 
district  investigations. 

New  York’s  first  public  bath  was  opened 
in  1901  ; the  Federation  supplied  informa- 
tion to  locate  its  earliest  successors,  of  which 
there  are  now  a dozen. 

The  old  Rapid  Transit  Commission  ap- 
plied to  it  for  a district  density  map  and 
voted  down  the  “L”  route  in  Delancey 
Street. 

The  Federation  furnished  the  facts  which 
located  De  Witt  Clinton  Park. 

Since  1907  all  district  investigations  have 
been  conducted  by  district  organizations, 
but  the  Federation  has  produced  and  per- 
fected the  system  which  secures  at  govern- 
mental expense  directive  data  needed  by 
city  departments  for  administrative  meas- 
ures and  records.  The  State  Census  of 
1915  will  use  the  same  area  units  as  the 
Federation  induced  the  Federal  Census 
Bureau  to  use  in  1910,  and  the  Federal 
Census  has  promised  the  Federation  and 
the  city  Board  of  Health  to  use  and  improve 
the  same  system  in  1920. 

The  Board  of  Education  owns  the  Fed- 
eration’s “Statistical  Sources  for  Demo- 
graphic Studies  of  Greater  New  York,” 
two  volumes,  770  pages,  17x27  inches, 
in  which  the  Federation  published  the  en- 
tire tabulation  of  the  1910  Census;  the 
New  York  Public  Library  owns  another 
copy;  and  the  Board  of  Health  is  using  an- 
other. 

The  Department  of  Charities;  the  Pub- 
lic Service  Commission ; the  Recreation 
3 


Commission,  and  the  Tenement  House  De- 
partment have  all  been  purchasers  of  the 
Federation’s  maps. 

The  Public  Service  Commission  decided 
to  build  the  Fourth  Avenue  Subway,  Brook- 
lyn, only  after  ascertaining  from  the  Federa- 
tion the  facts  of  the  increase  of  congestion 
on  Brooklyn’s  West  Side. 

The  Bridge  Commission,  New  York- 
New  Jersey,  and  many  other  state-city  pro- 
jects have  used  the  Federation  as  the  best 
center  of  New  York’s  knowledge  of  itself. 

The  Metropolitan  Sewerage  Commission, 
laying  out  a sanitary  system  for  the  city  for 
the  next  half  century,  has  accepted  the 
Federation’s  estimate  of  New  York’s  popu- 
lation in  1940  as  the  basis  of  all  its  recom- 
mendations. 

Equipping  Church  Extension  Socie- 
ties for  Comity  and  Efficiency  in 
Church  Planting  and  Planning: 

The  Big  Seven”  communions  of  Prot- 
estantism in  New  York,  the  Lutherans,  Bap- 
tists, Congregationalists,  Methodists,  Pres- 
byterians, Protestant  Episcopalians  and 
Reformed  habitually  use  the  Federation’s 
data,  apply  for  special  information  re- 
peatedly, and  co-operations  and  comity  are 
increasing  among  them.  The  efficiency  task 
of  the  Federation  affects  over  $200,000,000 
of  church  property.  “Redistribution”  is  the 
word  of  the  future  for  many  millions  of  it ; 
“Neighborhood  service”  the  word  of  the 
hour  for  all  of  it.  Official  church  maps 
of  38  borough  sub-divisions  of  the  five 
boroughs,  based  on  tax-exemption  records 
of  1914-1915,  are  now  in  preparation  for 
the  common  use  of  all  religious  bodies. 
These  maps  are  correlated  with  the  tract 
population  data  which  the  Federation  has 
induced  the  nation  to  tabulate.  In  the 
autumn  of  1915  the  Federation  plans  to 
publish  a year  book  of  churches  and  chari- 
ties, arranged  by  tracts,  with  memberships 
and  listings  of  work  for  foreign-born 
groups.  When  some  far-sighted  citizen 
will  give  it  $50,000  for  a “Neighborhood 
Welfare  and  Church  Efficiency  Survey  and 
Exhibit,”  it  can  largely  increase  the  divi- 
dend of  the  churches’  usefulness,  in  Ameri- 
canizing aliens,  toning  up  neighborhoods, 
protecting  homes,  and  purifying  lives. 

Locating  Needed  Churches 
in  Neglected  Districts:  98% 

of  New  York  s Protestant  churches  have 
4 


been  located,  since  1626,  by  denomina- 
tional action  alone;  2%,  located  by  the  inter- 
church recommendation  of  the  Federation, 
since  1895,  are  a product  of  the  co-operative 
policy  upon  which  even  the  operative  suc- 
cess of  the  churches  of  the  future  must  be 
built.  These  churches  belong  to  five  of 
the  “Big  Seven”  Protestant  communions. 
One  is  Moravian, 

Twenty  years  from  now  the  locations  of 
at  least  25%  of  the  Protestant  churches  of 
Greater  New  York  should  be  the  result 
of  inter-denominational  agreement. 

Organizing  the  Churches  for  Visita- 
tion and  Vigilance : The  tabulation  tracts 
of  the  Federal  Census  supply  a basis  for  the 
division  of  the  cky  into  responsibility  districts, 
and  during  the  last  twelve  months  it  has 
been  found  feasible,  all  over  New  York, 
to  obtain  the  assent  of  the  churches  to  print 
and  distribute  co-operative  advertising  and 
exercise  neighborhood  vigilance. 

Whenever  a department  store’s  adver- 
tising begins  to  announce  the  location  and 
goods  of  a competitor,  the  conclusion  is 
inevitable  that  competitors  have  become 
partners.  Where  the  Federation  has  in- 
troduced the  responsibility  district  system, 
each  church  distributes  the  announcements 
of  all  others  in  a “United  Invitation” 
folder.  Religion  is  announced  thereby  as 
co-operative,  a cement  of  society,  not  a 
wedge. 

The  Federation  initiated  co-operative  ad- 
vertising in  1897,  experimented  with  it  fur- 
ther in  1899,  introduced  it  in  six  neighbor- 
hoods in  1914,  and  has  standardized  it  for 
universal  use,  with  printing  forms  so  attrac- 
tive and  economical  as  to  be  available  for 
any  neighborhood. 

Acquainting  the  Charities  of  the 
City  with  their  task:  The  Association 
for  Improving  the  Condition  of  the  Poor  and 
the  Brooklyn  Bureau  of  Charities  have  both 
bought  the  publications  of  the  Federation,  and 
the  former  society  has  recast  its  visitors’  dis- 
tricts to  agree  with  groups  of  Federation 
tracts. 

The  Bureau  of  Charities  is  at  the  present 
moment  using  the  Federation’s  maps  to 
recast  the  boundaries  of  the  city’s  own  social 
service  districts. 

Locating  Branch  Libraries:  “The 

true  university  is  a collection  of  books.” 
The  Federation  has  helped  many  neighbor- 
5 


hoods  to  university  conditions  by  giving^ 
branches  of  the  Public  Library  a knowledge 
of  the  neighborhood  nationalities,  to  deter- 
mine the  contents  of  the  library  shelves. 

Locating  Model  Tenements;  The 

first  model  tenement  for  negroes  in  America 
was  built  on  a paragraph  of  the  Federation’s 
second  publication,  and  over  $400,000  have 
been  spent  on  model  tenements  for  negroes 
as  the  result.  It  supplied  the  rental  data  for 
the  first  operation  of  the  City  and  Suburban 
Homes  Company’s  splendid  work. 

Pioneering  the  Vacation  Bible 
School  Movement  as  a Co-operative 
Protestant  Enterprise;  The  Federation 
in  1905  instituted  church  vacation  schools  as  a 
federative  movement,  and  for  eleven  years 
has  gathered  the  children  of  the  tenements 
in  cool  churches  and  given  them  the  good 
cheer  and  culture  of  companionship  with 
college  men  and  women. 

In  the  summer  of  1915  this  work  is 
more  necessary  than  for  several  years  past, 
because  there  will  be  no  public  vacation 
schools  in  the  city  this  year.  This  move- 
ment is  now  nationalized. 

Acquainting  the  Clergy  of  the  City 
with  one  another;  The  Clerical  Con- 
ference of  the  Federation  was  instituted  in 
1910.  Its  enrollment  comprises  over  400 
of  the  pastors  of  the  city  and  immediate 
neighborhood.  Men  with  a message  of  the 
highest  rank,  whose  presence  could  hardly 
be  commandedby  denominational  gatherings, 
have  gladly  embraced  the  opportunity  to  ad- 
dress this  Conference’ s meetings,  and  it  has 
furnished  a centre,  dignified  and  appropriate, 
to  honor  such  servants  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
as  Viscount  Bryce,  Dr.  Siegmund-Schultze, 
Dr.  John  Clifford,  Baron  de  Neufville, 
Thomas  Mott  Osborne,  and  others;  and 
given  opportunity  to  public  servants  like 
Mayors  Gaynor  and  Mitchel,  Secretary 
Bryan  and  Colonel  Roosevelt,  to  acquaint 
the  clergy  with  their  ideas  and  ideals. 

Th  is  Conference,  as  a section  of  the 
clergy  of  the  State,  has  just  initiated  a state 
Committee  to  combat  Mormonism  as  a 
political  menace. 

Associating  the  Churches  with  the 
Progress  of  Social  Reform;  The  Law 

Enactment  and  Law  Enforcement  Bureau 
of  the  Federation,  organized  in  1909,  has 
led  the  churches  in  asking  One  Day’s 
6 


Rest  in  Seven”  legislation,  improved  housing 
and  factory  conditions,  law  enactment,  and  in 
advocating  measures  for  health,  recreational 
and  educational  improvement  of  multiform 
variety. 

The  Federation’s  church  list,  set  up  for 
its  electric  addressograph,  enables  it  to  com- 
municate with  the  churches  in  terms  of 
assembly,  senatorial,  and  congressional  dis- 
tricts whenever  it  so  desires,  and  it  annually 
places  in  the  hands  of  the  churches  a map 
list  of  assemblymen  and  senators,  and  for 
the  current  year  has  added  thereto  a list 
of  delegates  to  the  Constitutional  Con- 
vention. 

Assisting  Evangelism:  The  Evangelistic 
Committee  of  Greater  New  York  made  its 
first  appeal  in  an  eight  page  pamphlet,  foui 
pages  of  which  were  written  for  it  by  the 
Federation’s  office,  and  the  Federation  has 
continued  to  assist  it  and  other  evangelistic 
societies  to  meet  the  special  religious  needs 
of  special  classes  of  population. 

Teaching  International  Good  Will 
and  Racial  Justice:  In  1911  the  Clerical 
Conference  passed  a resolution  asking  the 
Nation  to  abrogate  its  treaty  with  Russia 
until  such  time  as  Russia  would  honor  all 
passports  of  American  citizens  without  re- 
gard to  race  or  creed. 

In  the  same  year  and  sub^-^'acntly  it 
passed  resolutions  committing  the  clergy 
of  the  city  to  co-operate  with  the  Inter- 
national Peace  Movement. 

In  1914  the  Federation  began  to  promote 
the  interest  of  the  churches  in  the  formation 
of  an  International  Court,  adapted  to  ad- 
judge the  differences  between  nations,  and 
equipped  to  enforce  its  decisions. 

Throughout  the  winter  of  1914-1915 
nearly  100  addresses  have  been  delivered  in 
the  churches  of  New  York  and  neighbor- 
hood in  this  interest. 

Shouldering  the  Burden  of  Unem- 
ployment Conditions  Resulting  from 
the  War:  In  the  autumn  of  1914  a group 
of  social  workers  requested  the  Federation 
to  organize  the  churches  to  meet  and  miti- 
gate the  distress  of  increased  unemployment 
then  threatening  the  city. 

As  early  as  June,  1914,  before  the  Euro- 
pean War  had  broken  out,  the  Economic 
Conditions  Committee  of  the  Federation 
was  given  the  task  of  awakening  the  church- 
es to  a sense  of  the  waste  and  wretched- 
7 


ness  occasioned  by  war.  A special  Inter- 
church Unemployment  Committee  to  ad- 
minister relief  rather  than  to  educate  opin- 
ion was  formed  in  November.  The  district 
organizations  of  the  Federation  wherever 
existing  were  convened,  and  employment 
committees  were  created  in  several  other 
districts.  Before  the  Mayor’s  Committee 
on  Unemployment  had  convened,  the 
churches  were  all  co-operating  to  serve  the 
needs  of  the  unemployed. 

Funds  for  the  Federation’s  committee 
were  raised  or  given  by  its  own  members, 
hut  its  secretary’s  services  were  donated  to 
the  Mayor’s  committee,  and  in  turn  the 
Mayor’s  committee  co-operated  with  it, 
with  the  happy  result  that  the  city  itself, 
the  Protestant  churches,  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic charities,  and  the  Jewish  synagogues, 
Orthodox  and  Reformed,  all  assisted  one 
another  to  help  New  York’s  needy  unem- 
ployed. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  generously  donated  his 
lecture  on  his  South  American  Travels  to 
the  committee,  and  a fund  of  over  $15,000 
has  been  disbursed  through  the  churches  and 
synagogues,  to  the  Mayor’s  committee,  and 
through  charities,  with  the  special  purpose 
of  assisting  those,  not  habitual  charity  seek- 
ers, but  known  to  the  churches  to  be  in 
need  rough  the  peculiar  unemployment 
conditions  ic  'king  from  the  war. 

Nearly  150  churches  and  synagogues  in 
the  five  boroughs  have  been  assisted  by  this 
fund  to  keep  heart  of  hope  in  their  people. 
Churches  of  all  nationalities  shared  in  it — 
German,  Austrian,  Russian,  Finnish,  Ita- 
lian and  Scandinavian,  and  the  stimulus 
given  them  by  the  observance  of  Unemploy- 
ment Sunday,  and  the  suggestions  of  service 
and  neighborliness  sent  out  by  the  com- 
mittee, produced  such  an  outflow  of  activity 
among  the  churches  as  to  compel  the  ad- 
miration and  gratitude  of  hosts  of  the  un- 
employed. 

The  reports  of  this  work,  which  closed 
May  1st,  are  not  yet  all  in,  but  The  New 
York  Federation  of  Churches  has  proved 
its  capacity  as  a co-operative  centre  by  assist- 
ing churches  of  all  the  “Big  Seven”  com- 
munions of  Greater  New  York, — Bap- 
tist, Congregational,  Lutheran,  Methodist, 
Protestant  Episcopal,  Presbyterian,  and  Re- 
formed, as  well  as  churches  of  the  Dis- 
ciples and  the  Moravians,  25  Roman 
Catholic  parishes,  and  nearly  fifty  syna- 
gogues, to  meet  a community  need. 


